


Rips in The Melody

by ThatFeanorian



Series: To Build The Bonds That Tie [7]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Brotherly Bonding, Chaos Family, Family Bonding, Family Fluff, Fluff, MY BABIES, Maglor's perspective on music, Slice of Life, Wow!, childhood fic, feanorians - Freeform - Freeform, let me make them happy, maglor and maedhros might be the only sane ones, please, seeing the world through sound, sons of feanor - Freeform, the world from a kid's eyes, this one ends happy!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:47:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25964596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatFeanorian/pseuds/ThatFeanorian
Summary: Maglor's world revolves around music. That's just how it is.A morning in April in which the Feanorians are chaotic, family is hard, but in the end, everyone is okay and perfection does not, necessarily, need to be perfect.
Relationships: Caranthir | Morifinwë & Maglor | Makalaurë, Celegorm | Turcafinwë & Maglor | Makalaurë, Curufin | Curufinwë & Maglor | Makalaurë, Fëanor | Curufinwë/Nerdanel, Maedhros | Maitimo & Maglor | Makalaurë, Maedhros | Maitimo & Sons of Fëanor, Maglor | Makalaurë & Sons of Fëanor, Nerdanel (Tolkien) & Sons of Fëanor
Series: To Build The Bonds That Tie [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1710157
Comments: 10
Kudos: 39





	1. Splinters

**Author's Note:**

> Ages are again:  
> Maedhros - 13  
> Maglor - 11  
> Celegorm - 8  
> Caranthir - 5  
> Curufin - 2
> 
> my mind said "write evil chaos baby curufin" and I said, "yes sir."

Maglor loves mornings. So early that the weak light of dawn is all that exists to lead his way. There is pure beautiful silence and not even the birds are there to interrupt him as his thoughts turn slowly from prose to poetry and staff markings. Downstairs, across the house from his parents’ bedroom, Maglor has a small white room, whitewashed and empty except for a single large window and a grand piano. Two years ago, Maglor made Maedhros paint the door until it was covered in colours, all meshing together into something that approximated the images he sees in his mind as the music flows through him and onto the piano keys. 

Morning light makes Maglor’s mind buzz, a million colours and thoughts and music notes appearing and filling his mind like sand until the only thing he can do is leap out of bed and run for the music room where he can release the pressure building up from all the unsung songs. He plays until the birds join him and his fingertips are smudged with ink from all of the notes he has written and written and written again, always revising because it can never quite come out perfect. He stares at the papers, his illegible handwriting looking back at him, full of the hopes and dreams he had poured through his instrument just moments before, and which now he only understands by a fraction. Outside the sky is finally blue and the birds sing joyfully, and Maglor shuffles the papers into order, standing in front of the piano so that he can reach both the pedals and the keys. It makes him angry that Celegorm, who is two years younger than he, has already surpassed him in height and can reach the pedals while seated without any issue. 

Hesitantly, his fingers find the keys and then they fly, a small fluttering which swells slowly into song. The notes are beautiful, but out of key, fractured, broken in some places so that Maglor has to stop and pick the melody back out of the chaos he has left on the paper behind him. The damp spring air beyond his window presses to the glass, dewdrops sliding one by one down the glass. The birds have gone quiet again, or perhaps Maglor can not hear them beyond the fractured hope of his own music. As the last notes hang in the air, Maglor hears a loud screech and several bangs as something small and dark-haired barrels around the corner and through his open door. Junior skids to a stop inches from Maglor’s piano and plops himself down looking directly up at Maglor with huge blue eyes and screaming one single high shrill note seemingly without end.

“Junior, shut up! You’ll wake Mom and Dad up!” Maglor exclaims running to shut the door to the music room, but Junior pays him no attention, only altering his voice to shriek a little louder and higher until Maglor, cringing at the noise, grabs the little boy and pulls him into his arms, stumbling backwards with the weight of his younger brother until he can sit on the piano bench. Immediately, Junior’s mouth shuts and he gazes sweetly up at Maglor, popping his thumb into his mouth and giggling around it,

“You play music loud.” Maglor glares at his youngest brother and checks his watch. 5:18. On any normal day, he would have had another hour to play and play and play, rewriting everything until the song no longer sounded broken and empty. Now, he will be surprised if he doesn’t see the rest of his family downstairs within ten minutes. 

“Junior,” he complains, not caring that he sounds whiny and young himself, “Why can’t you just be normal? I wasn’t even being that loud.” 

“You were too loud.” Junior asserts again, stretching out his hand towards the piano and slamming down a tiny fist, sending a disjointed clash of sound into the air with an evil-sounding laugh. Maglor wants to throw him out of the room and lock the door, to hide and go back to the dawn silence and aloneness that allows him to think. Junior reaches out a hand and slams the piano a few more times with wild giggles before a frown crosses his face, pouting as he looks up at Maglor and whines,

“You better.” Maglor can’t help the smile that crosses his face at that and Junior reaches down, struggling to lift one of Maglor’s hands and drop it onto the piano.

“You.” He says, glaring stubbornly up at Maglor as if there is some possibility he might say no to such a request. Maglor glances over at the smudged ink papers in front of him, wanting nothing more than to go back to trying to fix the song, but instead he picks up a light easy melody, one Junior knows well and now sings along brokenly to, getting half the words wrong and happily tugging hard on Maglor’s hair with every downbeat. Outside the room, Maglor hears a creak on the stairs and turns around just as Maedhros enters the room holding a half-asleep Caranthir. In response to his unasked question, Maglor quickly responds,

“No one was hurt, Junior was just being annoying.” Junior gives another sharp tug of his hair and Maglor winces.

“No,” Junior says fiercely, and Maedhros carefully sets Caranthir down on the bench next to Maglor before scooping Junior into his arms, gently untangling Maglor’s hair from his sticky fingers as he replies,

“That’s good —silly, we don’t pull Káno’s hair, that hurts!” Junior lets out another shriek of laughter as Maedhros pokes his stomach. Curled against Maglor’s side, Caranthir pulls his knees up to his chest and buries his face in them mumbling,

“He knows, he’s just mean.” Internally, Maglor agrees, but in the hopes of gaining his older brother’s favour, he remains quiet, watching as Junior’s eyes narrow evilly and he bites Maedhros’ finger with his tiny sharp teeth. Taking advantage of Maedhros’ yelp of pain and surprise, Junior leaps from his brother’s arms and Maglor’s hands are already half-way to his ears when his youngest brother lets out a shriek and then begins to wail as he lands squarely on his bottom. 

It feels very suddenly too loud, all of this explosive sound and colour after the grey of being alone. Inside his head and his music, Maglor can make the silver-blue of Maedhros blend seamlessly into Junior’s maroon while Caranthir’s pale green sings a soprano tying them together. Here, beyond the confines of what he can control, they are all dissonant, a chaotic clamour with no melody at all. Silently, Maglor picks up the sheets and scoots slowly towards the door, slipping out the door as Maedhros frantically bounces Junior, jumping back and forth between cooing words of comfort and barely restraining his frustration. He hurries down the hall and into the kitchen, sheets clutched to his chest like some secret treasure and flops down in his chair, pulling a pen from his pocket and staring down at the scribbled notes. They seem nearly incoherent now, far from the perfect symphony of sound he had intended and Maglor slumps backwards letting out a huff of annoyance and looking up to see his mother already standing at the kitchen counter making coffee. 

“Good morning sweetheart,” She says with a knowing smile and Maglor scowls in response, still able to hear Junior shrieking in the background. 

“No it isn’t,” He grumbles stubbornly, “Stupid Junior didn’t even let me get anything done.”

“Let me see?” She asks, and Maglor reluctantly hands her the messy sheets, self-conscious and more than aware that they are terrible. Not good enough for her and certainly not good enough (never good enough, he is never good enough) for his father. Junior toddles around the corner, his thumb in his mouth, but somehow still screaming for help as Nora picks up the sheets and she glances up, quickly gathering him into her arms and laughing. Junior reaches out, pushing the papers from her hand and to the floor, leaving the corner slightly crumpled, and Nora reaches down to pick them up again, only to be attacked from behind by Cel, who has appeared from somewhere outside with grass stains in his hair and one of his teeth in his hand, knocked clean out of his mouth,

“Look, Mom!” He says proudly, “Huan knocked it out for me!” Nora takes in a deep breath through her teeth and asks,

“That’s wonderful sweetie, was it wiggly to begin with?” Celegorm shakes his head,

“Nah, Verkeneldo says it’s an adult tooth.” He says with a gap-toothed grin, and Nora looks up as Náro enters the room, stepping carelessly ontop of Maglor’s music as he scoops Junior from Nora’s arms, the dirt on the bottom of his work shoes smearing over Maglor’s messily scribbled notes. 

“Náro, make sure you call in another dentist’s appointment for Tyelko,” Nerdanel calls as Fëanor passes her. Maglor jumps up, determined to get to his music before it is ruined any more, but now Náro his hurrying back, kissing Junior on the cheek and placing him on top of Maglor’s papers as he turns around and hurries out the door. Maglor pushes Junior off the papers and gathers them back safely into his arms, only to turn around and have Celegorm dump a glass of orange juice straight onto his head. 

Maglor can feel it dripping down onto the music sheets, sinking into the messy notes and smearing the ink slowly down the page. No one notices, no one cares. Junior is crying on the floor, Caranthir is yelling angrily at Celegorm, and Nelyo is on his phone in the corner, hiding from the chaos of the rest of the family. 

Giving Celegorm a look which cannot even pass as a scowl due to the tears already spilling out of his eyes, Maglor vanishes up the stairs, slamming the sheets down onto his desk and rubbing his eyes angrily, staring down at the blurred and illegible notes on the top half of each sheet.

The papers were useless to begin with; terrible, disjointed, worthless attempts to explain the music in his mind. Maglor doesn’t even know why he is so upset over their destruction, except for perhaps the fact that they are his. Maglor’s. Maglor reaches down and attempts to split them out from the soaked pile, but instead the top sheet rips across the top, the soggy paper leaving him with nothing but scraps by the time he has finished prising the sheets apart. 

Broken, just like the notes of his song. Grasping at the strains of song that remain in his mind, Maglor grabs paper and begins to scribble, but within moments Maglor drops his pen again and crumples up the sheet he had been writing and hurls it at the wall. There is no music. Somehow, during the clamour and dissonance and chaos of his brothers, the melody has fled from his mind and left him with nothing but an empty buzzing sound. 

Maglor buries his head in his hands and cries.


	2. All Come Together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one had to be torn from my unwilling brain, but I finally got it down on paper. Thank goodness. Enjoy!

A few hours later he is still kneeling in front of his desk with the crumpled paper carefully flattened in his hands as he attempts to piece it back together into what it had been before. The orange juice has dried on the papers and smeared ink covers much of what had once been half-legible writing, but there are a few sections Maglor thinks he might actually be able to read, and in hopes of preserving them he ignores the stabbing pain in his kneecaps and continues trying to piece all the damp edges together. 

None of them seems to fit quite right, though, each one ripped and damp so that the edges have deformed and don’t match each other well enough for him to recreate what was once one sheet of paper instead of just ripped scraps. Behind him, the door creaks open and Maglor turns to glare at Maedhros as his brother enters the room.

Only two years older, but those years seem to make all the difference, Maglor’s anger disappears the moment Maedhros kneels patiently beside him and hugs him tightly. Maglor would cry again, but he already used all the tears he has left in his body. Instead, he just trembles in Maedhros’s arms, wishing that his brother could turn the scraps back into a whole as easily as he does Maglor’s heart. 

“It’s okay, Káno, I’m sorry Tyelko was being a jerk. We can fix it, right?” Mae says gently somewhere above him, and Maglor shakes his head,

“It’s all wet and ripped up and nothing goes where it’s supposed to.” Maedhros pulls him to his feet and keeps his arm wrapped around Maglor’s shoulder as the two of them move over to the desk looking down again at the shattered music. 

“See? Maglor mumbles sniffing and looking down at the wreck, “You can’t even read it anymore.” He looks up at Maedhros, hoping his brother will be able to crack the code he has been unable to break and to see some pattern, some solution to it all, but instead he just sees disappointment and pity.

“I’m sorry Káno, that was… a total dick move on Tyelko’s part. Do you at least remember it?” Maglor shook his head sadly, plopping backwards onto his bed and dragging Maedhros with him. There is silence for a moment, while Maglor trembles with pent up sobs again. Maedhros holds him tightly as if both of them might drown if he lets go. 

“I just wanted it to be good, one good song for Dad, but now it’s gone and it was bad anyway. They’re never good,” Maglor mumbles, curling deeper into Maedhros’s much taller frame. Maedhros squeezes him even tighter.

“I think they’re all beautiful, Káno. Your music is amazing the way it is.” Maglor looks up and wants to thank him, to write a symphony so sweet that Maedhros will be able to finally feel how much Maglor loves him, but instead he just whispers:

“But they’re not perfect.” For a moment, Maglor can see tears in Maedhros’s eyes, silvery water making them waver and sparkle in the morning light, glimmering on the edge of his eyelashes, and then the moment passes and Maedhros blinks. What might have been tears are gone, and Maedhros is Maedhros again. He smiles and squeezes Maglor’s shoulder.

“Káno, that’s stupid. They’re not supposed to be perfect. That’s what makes them interesting. I love your songs because they have little moments that remind me of you.” This should make Maglor feel better, but somehow it does not. It cannot fix the song or Celegorm or the fact that he would have been done and the papers would have been safe in his room had Junior just waited another half an hour. 

“Yeah, I guess,” he mumbles, because Maedhros is still sitting next to him and his brother’s arms are so warm and perfect. Sometimes Maglor wishes Maedhros had been his father instead of Fëanor. Fëanor is always hurrying from one place to another, never stopping in between to just notice them. 

Instead Maglor has to write and write and write, trying eternally to find that one perfect song that might finally be enough to make his father pause and notice him. Maglor’s terrified that he will never find the right one, but Maedhros… Maedhros has so much faith in him. It would be easy --were Maedhros his father-- to feel worthy of being loved, so instead of ruining the warmth of his brother’s hug, Maglor simply stays silent, wishing the damp ripped papers might realign and give him back his song. Wishing the strings of fate would reweave themselves to let Maedhros know just how much Maglor loves him. Maedhros shifts on the bed next to him, leaning over towards the desk and then saying softly:

“You know, some of these are still readable. It’s only bits and pieces, but maybe you can use them for something else?” Maglor looks up into Maedhros’s hopeful face, seeing a sudden flash of fear in Maedhros’s eyes that surprises him because he knows.

Fear that even his best effort to fix things will not be enough, fear that he, Maglor, is not enough. Maglor grits his teeth against the urge to dismiss the scraps, to call them damaged and terrible and ruined, and instead leans over to inspect the tiny snippets of music. They’re nothing. Broken. Ridiculous and useless, but as Maedhros points them out, his voice so full of hope, Maglor collects them all into a pile and looks up at his brother, his heart swelling. 

“I.. I know it’s not fixed, but is that enough to help remember?” Maedhros asks, and Maglor nods.

“Yeah,” he lies, “It’s perfect. Thank you, Nelyo.” His brother gives a brilliant smile and hugs Maglor tightly against him. Maglor buries his face in Maedhros’s front, feeling tears come to his eyes. The music will never, never, never be enough or back to the broken but fixable melody that it had been before, but Maedhros… Maedhros is enough. 

In the back of his mind, a simple string of notes begins to form, and as if this one tiny phrase is all it takes to break the dam, a million notes come flooding into his mind at once, all vivid and strong in his mind and full of the same love he can feel singing in his heart. Maedhros. Maedhros has always been enough for him, held him, kissed him, told him he is beautiful and enough and… 

The song is already far ahead of him, Maglor’s subconscious mind weaving in those same snippets of music Maedhros pointed out, and with his eyes sparkling Maglor jumps to his feet and snatches them up, grabbing Maedhros’s hand and running down the stairs two at a time. It feels far too slow and Maglor’s heart is thumping in his throat as he grabs the nearest stack of empty staff sheets, letting his hand fly across the paper without even thinking, just desperate to get the music out of his head before it is lost. 

The melody rises and falls like ocean waves, a million sparks of sunshine dancing across it, and Maglor does not care (for once) that the composition is short and imperfect. He doesn’t care if his fingers fly a little too fast in his writing and some parts are illegible. Standing up with ink smudged hands he finds Maedhros waiting patiently in the doorway, a fond smile on his face and eyes full of so much love that for a moment Maglor cannot breathe. My brother, he thinks proudly, mine. And he thinks I am enough. 

“Do you have time to listen?” he asks shyly, and Maedhros’s smile is all the answer he needs as he sits down and begins to play. The music floats effortlessly from his fingers, dancing and leaping upwards towards the sky and filled with all the love he could possibly fit into it. Maglor knows it is not long or stunning or perfect, but for once, he feels happy with it just being what it is. The song comes from somewhere deep inside of him and he can feel the rhythm rocking him gently, filling him up with Maedhros’s love. 

By the time Maglor stops playing, he is breathless and it takes a moment for him to even remember where he is. The world seems to have tilted slightly, leaving him --not off balance but feeling unsteady in the sudden silence. Maglor turns shyly towards Maedhros looking up at his brother hopefully, and without a single word Maedhros wraps Maglor up into his warm arms. Maglor wants to cry again, he wants to laugh and sing and cry and never let go of his brother because Maedhros is here. But instead, he just relaxes his head against Maedhros’s shoulder and mumbles,  
“I love you Nelyo.”  
“I love you too,” Maedhros whispers, and Maglor knows his song isn’t perfect or clean or long enough to be good, but he smiles nonetheless, happy to know that --for once-- what he has is enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Verkaneldo is my own translation, so this might be totally wrong, but it should be quenya for while noldo.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed!


End file.
